Welfare Reform

Kerby Anderson

Many members of Congress have been pushing to reform the welfare
system and break the cycles of illegitimacy and dependency. But
changing the existing welfare system will not be easy. In its more
than 50 years of existence, the system has indeed developed into a
mass of bureaucratic idiosyncracies, and these experts say the
numerous institutionalized workers are likely to resist attempts to
reform them or their routines.

Most taxpayers are skeptical that real change will take place, and
they have every right to be skeptical. Since 1960, Congress has
passed at least six major welfare revisions so welfare recipients
can find work. But the rolls increased by 460% in the same period.
Nevertheless, welfare must be reformed. Since 1965, American
taxpayers have been forced to pay $5 trillion into a welfare system
created to end poverty. The result? No measurable reduction in
poverty. After three decades of Great Society programs to fight the
war on poverty, poverty and families are doing worse.

The most visible and most cost-inefficient segment of the U.S.
welfare system today is Aid for Dependent Children or AFDC. AFDC
began in 1935 as a little-noticed part of the Social Security Act.
Its principal purpose was to aid widows and their children until
the Social Security survivors' fund could pay out claims. Currently
there are more than 14 million individuals on AFDC, and 1 in 7
children is on welfare.

AFDC is not the only program of concern. In the early 1960s, the
Kennedy administration proposed several other welfare programs.
Their stated purposes were the admirable goals of eliminating
dependency, delinquency, illegitimacy, and disability. And the
modern welfare state was born during the flood of Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society programs aimed at the war on poverty.

But the road to utopia ran into some devastating chuckholes. Most
social statistics indicate that the war on poverty had many
casualties. The unintended consequences of these welfare programs
was a system which breaks down families, traps the poor in idle
frustration, and perpetuates a cycle of government dependency. One
aspect of this dependency is family breakdown. Approximately half
of today's AFDC recipients are mothers who have never been married
to the father or fathers of their children. Another 40 percent are
mothers whose husbands have left home.

Another aspect of this dependency is poverty. Half of the poor live
in female-headed households. And welfare has not improved their
lot. The poverty level has remained relatively unchanged since that
time, while illegitimate births have increased more than 400
percent. In the 1960s we declared war on poverty, and poverty won.

Obviously, reform must take place. In fiscal year 1992, the U.S.
spent $305 billion for AFDC. This is more than the current defense
budget.

Good Intentions Gone Awry

The dramatic increases in the number of welfare recipients and the
length of their dependency on welfare have alarmed both liberals
and conservatives. But liberals and conservatives differ in their
prescriptions. Liberals argue for more effective programs and for
additional job training. Conservatives, on the other hand, argue
that the intractable pathologies of the welfare system (the
destruction of the family unit and the fostering of dependency) are
due to large-scale governmental intervention. Their argument has
been strengthened by the earlier research of Charles Murray in his
book Losing Ground.

His thesis is that our government not only failed to win its war on
poverty, but ended up taking more captives. Under the guise of
making life better, it ended up making life worse for the poor.
Murray said, "We tried to provide more for the poor and produced
more poor instead. We tried to remove the barriers to escape from
poverty and inadvertently built a trap." Murray proposes radical
changes in the current welfare system, and a number of conservative
proposals before Congress include various aspects of Murray's
proposals.

But long before Murray's book provided a thorough statistical
evaluation, social theorists and even casual observers could see
that our current welfare system promotes dependency and destroys
the family unit.

Welfare payments provide economic incentives for the creation of
single-parent families since they provide a continuous source of
income to young mothers. The welfare system was designed to assist
when there was no father. But the system effectively eliminated the
father entirely by tying payments to his absence.

An irresponsible man can father a child without worrying about how
to provide for the child. And a dedicated father with a low-paying
job may feel forced to leave home so his children can qualify for
more benefits. Eventually the welfare system eliminated the need
for families to take any economic initiative by rewarding single
parents and penalizing married couples. The result has been an
illegitimate birth rate for black women of 88 percent.

A second reason for the breakdown of the family is the
"adultification" of children. Various judicial rulings have
undercut the role parents can have in helping their children with
difficult decisions. Courts have ruled that parental notification
for dispensing birth control drugs and devices violates the minors'
rights. Courts have ruled that children need not obtain their
parents' permission before they obtain an abortion. The natural
progression of this continued trend toward children's rights is the
breakdown of the family.

The most rapid rise in poverty rates have been among the children
the system was designed to help. This astonishing increase of
illegitimate births by over 400 percent is a principal reason for
poverty and the perpetuation of a poverty cycle of "children
raising children."

Third, the current welfare system rewards dependency and punishes
initiative. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in
exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work,
and provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work. In
Maryland, for example, a single parent with two children would need
to earn a minimum of $7.50 an hour to earn the same amount as
provided by welfare grants and benefits. Is it any wonder that so
many welfare mothers therefore conclude that staying on welfare is
better than getting off.

Can Welfare Be Changed?

Now I would like to focus on the various congressional proposals
that seek to end welfare at we know it. Although there has been
much talk of welfare reform, there have been very few substantive
changes in the welfare system in the last three decades. Since
1960, Congress has passed at least six major welfare revisions so
welfare recipients can find work. But the rolls increased by 460
percent in the same period.

A report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services
revealed the cost of administering welfare programs grows twice as
fast as the number of recipients. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, welfare as a percent of the Gross Domestic Product
has increased by 230 percent, and its cost will exceed $500 billion
by the end of this decade.

Various congressional proposals attempt to either substantially
modify or else eliminate the current system. First let's focus on
those proposals that want to modify welfare in the following five
areas.

The first change would be in child support. Fathers are not
providing child support, and these bills would tighten the
loopholes and make these dads pay up. Currently unwed fathers are
not named on birth certificates. The omission frequently foils
attempts to collect child support. But if dad pays, then mom's
welfare check does not have to be so large. The proposed bills
would require the mother to identify the father in order to receive
a welfare check. States can threaten deadbeat dads with garnishing
wages and suspending professional and driver's licenses.

The second change is in the so-called marriage penalty. If a
pregnant teen get married or lives with the father of her child,
she is frequently ineligible for welfare. Congressional proposals
would encourage states to abolish the "marriage penalty" and make
it easier to married couples to get welfare.

Creating a family cap is another significant change. Welfare
mothers can increase the size of their welfare check by having more
children. Congressional bills being considered would allow states
to cap payments. If a welfare mother has another child, her check
remains the same.

Already in New Jersey, Arkansas, and Georgia, families receive no
increase for children born while on the dole. Congressional
proposals would extend and encourage this opportunity to other
states. The evidence so far is that this family cap may have some
deterrence.

Another change is to emphasize work. Often if a welfare mother gets
a job, her check is reduced, and she is likely to lose such
benefits like Medicare and free child care. The new proposals
before Congress would drop benefits after two years. If an able-
bodied welfare recipient does not find a private-sector job then
she would be assigned a minimum-wage government job.

A final change would be to keep teenage mothers in school. In the
current system a teenager can receive a welfare check, get her own
apartment, and drop out of school. Congressional proposals would
require a teen mother to live at home until age 18. She has to stay
in school or she will lose her benefits. If the family's income is
high enough, she does not receive any check at all.

These then are a few of the elements of the congressional proposals
to end welfare as we know it. They take some solid steps toward
ending illegitimacy and dependency. But there are even more radical
proposals, and we will consider them next.

Congressional Proposals

Now we will turn our focus to some of the bills that attempt to do
more than just modify the system and actually propose elimination
of certain aspects of welfare.

One bill by Congressman James Talent would no longer provide
welfare checks, food stamps, and public housing to women under 21
with children born out of wedlock. The justification for such
actions stems from the original work by Charles Murray who believes
that only this radical solution will cause teenage mothers to
change their behavior.

Illegitimacy is the underlying cause of poverty, crime, and social
meltdown in the inner cities. Proponents of these more radical
proposals believe it is better to stem the tide of illegitimacy
than trying to build a dam of social programs to try to contain the
flood of problems later on.

Illegitimacy leads to poverty and to crime. Nearly a third of
American children are born out of wedlock, and those children are
four times more likely to be poor. And the connection between
illegitimacy and crime is also disturbing. More than half the
juvenile offenders serving prison time were raised by only one
parent. If birth rates continue, the number of young people trapped
in poverty and tempted by the values of the street will increase.
Illegitimacy is essentially a ticking crime bomb.

Welfare is supposed to be a second chance, not a way of life, but
tell that to some children who represent the fourth generation on
welfare. Proponents of these radical reforms believe we must scrap
the current system.

Another concern is the entangled bureaucracy of welfare. Currently
governors have to ask the Federal government if they can revamp
their state welfare system. And the federal bureaucracy costs
money. If you took the money spent for welfare and gave it to poor
families it would amount to $25,000 a year for every family of
four.

These bills would also freeze or change welfare payments. They
would replace Food Stamps and AFDC with block grants to the states.
Each state would then be free to design its own system.

These proposals also emphasize work by providing a transition for
able-bodied welfare recipients into the workplace. The federal
government would double welfare payments during the transition
period, but would send the check to the employer rather than
directly to the welfare recipient. This would no doubt provide
greater incentive to work hard and stay on the job.

Many in Congress are skeptical of proposals to provide jobs through
job training programs. In the past job training has been relatively
ineffective. One 1990 study of New York welfare recipients found
that 63 percent of black recipients and 54 percent of whites have
received training while on welfare, but few left the rolls for
employment. Even with the training, less than 8 percent of blacks
and 5 percent of white recipients were working.

Finally, these proposals would also encourage marriage. Currently
the welfare system encourages fathers to leave. These proposals
would not only provide social incentives but economic incentives by
providing two-parent families with a $1000 tax credit.

These then are a few of the elements of the congressional proposals
to end welfare as we know it. They do take some solid steps toward
ending illegitimacy and dependency.

Biblical Principles

I want to conclude this discussion of welfare and welfare reform
with some biblical principles that we should use to understand and
act on this vital social issue.

The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need.
Christians may disagree about how much is necessary and who should
receive help, but there should be no disagreement among Christians
about our duty to help the poor since we are directly commanded to
do so. Let's then, look at two important questions.

First, who should help the poor? The Bible clearly states that the
primary agent of compassionate distribution of food and resources
should be the church. Unfortunately, the majority of poverty
programs in existence today are government programs or
governmentally sponsored programs. While we can applaud the
excellent programs established by various churches and Christian
organizations, we must lament that most poverty programs are
instituted by the state.

Poverty is much more than an economic problem. It results from
psychological, social, and spiritual problems. Government agencies,
by their very nature, cannot meet these needs. The church must take
a much greater role in helping the poor and not be content to allow
the government to be the primary agency for welfare.

A second important question is who should we help? Government
programs help nearly everyone who falls below the poverty line, but
the Bible establishes more specific qualifications. A biblical
system of welfare must apply some sort of means test to those who
are potential recipients of welfare. Here are three biblical
qualifications for those who should receive welfare.

First, they must be poor. They should not be able to meet basic
human needs. We should help those who have suffered misfortune or
persecution, but the Bible does not instruct us to give to just
anyone who asks for help or to those who are merely trying to
improve their comfort or lifestyle.

Second, they must be diligent. Some people are poor because of
laziness, neglect, or gluttony. Christians are instructed to
admonish laziness and poor habits like drinking, drugs, or even
laziness that lead to poverty. Proverbs says, "Go to the ant, you
sluggard, and observe her ways and be wise." The Apostle Paul more
pointedly says, "If a man will not work, neither let him eat." Lazy
people should not be rewarded by welfare, but rather encouraged to
change their ways. Third, the church must provide for those thrown
into poverty because of the death of the family provider. The Bible
commands us to provide for widows and orphans who are in need. Paul
wrote to Timothy that a widow who was 60 years or older whose only
husband has died was qualified to be supported by the church.

I believe the needs of the poor can and should be met by the
church. Churches and individual Christians need to do their part in
fighting poverty in their area. Homemakers can provide meals.
Educators can provide tutoring and counseling. Businessmen can
provide employment training. The church as a whole can provide
everything from a full-time ministry to the poor to an occasional
collection for the benevolence fund to be distributed to those
facing temporary needs brought about by illness or unemployment.
The key is for the church to obey God's command to feed the hungry
and clothe the naked. Helping the poor is not an option. We have a
biblical responsibility which we cannot simply pass off to the
government.